It's a long time since we aired this No. 2 thread. I am prompted to do so as I have at last got round to removing the offending tyre threads from the rear wheels on my No. 2.. They are just so gruesome I think when fitted to old steel wheel tractors - there should be international laws against it!

Anyway a blacksmith friend made me a set of strakes for it which I collected before Xmas. Then I started to undo the bolts holding the tyres on but this was by and large impossible with the very rounded heads that couldn't be gripped and bashed up threads. So I bought myself a big disc cutter to attack the problem. It has really worked. Often you have to cut through the tread itself and this is quite hard work on the cutter. Anyway today I finished getting the tread on the left hand side wheel off and got round to fitting the strakes. Needles to say a complete new set of nuts and bolts required which over here cost about 1 $ each with nut and a spring washer. I went for a 16 mm metric size as this was a nice snug fit (no doubt the purists will be enraged by this but I can always grind the metric marks on the head off! The nuts and head fit a 15/16 AF spanner perfectly and they are coarse thread so look the part.

I am very pleased with the trasformation of the tractor away from its cissy state and back to its correct rugged image. Once the strakes get a bit of rust on they will look very original. The patterns of the old ones were still to be seen when I removed that offending tyre. Tomorow I'll start on the right hand side.

This tractor has a lot of history - it won MF's worldwide hunt and prize for being the oldest working Massey tractor in the world in 1984. The previous owner had had the tyres fitted for convenience of taking the tractor on the road up in Canada.

Many say that you can't load a tractor on to a trailer with lugs or strakes but with some good timber planks (or rubber conveyor belt) you can - and how much more lifelike and original they look.